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BitBender is an interactive installation which invites viewers to play games while also generating complex sounds and interlinked video glitch effects by manipulating a custom joystick.

INTRO:
BitBender is an experimental music, performance and gaming interface which utilizes elements of game play, touch controlled electronic sound generation and modified video. The combination of these elements results in a unique, multi faceted experiences for both performer and audience.
It is designed to be a public installation. Therefore it has been designed with the laymen and first time user in mind. It also attempts to harness the social potential of public interaction.

LAYOUT:
BitBender is made up of three main blocks (see figure 1 for hardware layout):
1. Modified Nintendo game system
2. Analog voltage controlled signal generator
3. Game/synthesizer controllers

USE:
The user selects a game to play and presses the power button on the Nintendo. 1 or 2 player games may be selected. Once the game has loaded, using the game controller allows for standard game play. As long as the viewer only touches the joystick and buttons the game will function normally.
Pressing on the touch sensitive voltage source pads (see fig B) causes a few things to happen at once.
1. The game sound track from the Nintendo is silenced.
2. A complex sound pattern is generated by the synth and broadcast from a nearby amplifier. Characteristics such as rate and pitch or the entire kind of effect change as more pads are pressed the pressure on each pad changes.
3. The video becomes severely distorted. The kinds of distortion are determined by the pads being pressed as well as pressure applied. The distortion patters are controlled by the synth oscillators. Therefore what the user hears is also what they see.
Releasing the pads returns the system to the normal state and the user can continue playing the game in a traditional fashion.

PERFORMANCE, PLAY and COMPETITION:
My goal was to create a hybrid of differing kinds of interaction in order to explore a new form of music and performance. It incorporates electronic sound generation, video modulation controlled by the sound, is built around a gaming system and is intended to be installed in a public venue which introduces a strong social component to all of the aspects.
The result is a social, audio and visual experience which invites liberal exploration of each of these parameters.
Most importantly I want the experience to be intriguing and inspiring for the user. The key to successful installation and also experimental musical interfaces is to steer the user to a favorable outcome but also let them explore and come up with personal results. It is important to make the interface as easy to access as possible but to then offer a depth of control for those who wish to delve deeper. The pressure sensitive touch interface does this perfectly. It is incredibly easy to use but can also be extremely subtle.
As a musical interface I am interested in how the conventions of gaming translate into the relative timing and flow of musical output. For instance one may be making decisions based on musical composition as well as timing aspects of the game.
I am equally interested in how the coordination of sound and video impacts the musical output of the device. One hears sound very differently when that sound is represented visually.
The inclusion of gaming serves several purposes. First it is an accessible and intuitive form of interaction. The first challenge when making public installation is to get the public to interact with the piece. The next challenge is to get them to interact in the way you intended. One generally needs very little explanation or coaxing in order to play a video game. The controls were designed using standard arcade hardware which are big, simple and inviting.
Gaming brings with it lots of social, personal and thematic baggage. Many people have a history of gaming and some form of emotional connection with that experience. This is an important aspect which generates expectations. Expectations create the wonderful opportunity to defy those expectations, which is what this piece does through dramatic sound and video modification.
Gaming is also a social experience which more often than not is competitive in nature. This is an aspect I am especially interested in exploring as applied to music making. Each player is able to control the sound and video. One player can modulate the sound and video while the other is playing the game. Therefore there is an added level of competitive and even collaborative dynamic in this piece.
Lastly, game systems such as the Nintendo have easily modifiable video generators. By shorting out points on the video chips it is possible to generate many different kinds of video glitching effects. Some effects will inhibit game play while others simply change aspects of the game characters or landscape.

THE HARDWARE:
Nintendo Game System.
The nintendo has been modified to allow points on the circuit board associated with video generation and rendering to be shorted to the negative power supply. This results in a variety of video glitching effects ranging from resolution reduction to background and/or foreground scrambling.

Analog voltage controlled signal generator
This is an analog modular synthesizer. I have referred to it as a voltage controlled signal generator due to the fact that the term “synthesizer” is often associated with audio generating devices. In this case the synth generates audio as well as controlling the video.
Sound is simply a modulating voltage. This voltage may be sent to speaker to make sound but can also be used as a control signal for other circuitry and electronic devices.
The synth contains the following modules:
-3 oscillators";s:6:"filter";b:1;s:11:"panels_info";a:6:{s:5:"class";s:14:"WP_Widget_Text";s:3:"raw";b:0;s:4:"grid";i:1;s:4:"cell";i:0;s:2:"id";i:3;s:5:"style";a:1:{s:18:"background_display";s:4:"tile";}}}}s:5:"grids";a:2:{i:0;a:2:{s:5:"cells";i:2;s:5:"style";a:1:{s:18:"background_display";s:4:"tile";}}i:1;a:2:{s:5:"cells";i:1;s:5:"style";a:1:{s:18:"background_display";s:4:"tile";}}}s:10:"grid_cells";a:3:{i:0;a:2:{s:4:"grid";i:0;s:6:"weight";d:0.471252566734999989161991607033996842801570892333984375;}i:1;a:2:{s:4:"grid";i:0;s:6:"weight";d:0.528747433264999955326857161708176136016845703125;}i:2;a:2:{s:4:"grid";i:1;s:6:"weight";i:1;}}}